Litterbug
by analine
Summary: Perhaps all of this had been a mistake, thinking that he could just show up on Torchwood Three's doorstep asking for a job, and that this would be enough.


**Title**_: _Litterbug

**Word Count**_: _775

**Rating_: _**PG

**Warnings/Spoilers**_: _S2E12 - Fragments

**Notes**: Written for Torchwood_LAS on LJ, round 1, challenge #5. Prompts were "mistakes" and "weather".

* * *

Even by Cardiff standards, the weather had been terrible these past few days - inclement, bruised, and moody, with dark clouds that rolled in over the bay each evening around dusk. A steady trickle of rain built in intensity throughout the night, flaring up here and there into a proper downpour at least once each night before dawn. Ianto's mood seemed to match the weather, swelling in and out at unpredictable intervals, dark and then lighter again, uncontrollable, powerful.

Perhaps all of this had been a mistake, thinking that he could just show up on Torchwood Three's doorstep asking for a job, and that this would be enough.

Lisa had been the one who'd made him buy the suit, over six months ago now. There'd been a wedding, a wealthy cousin of hers, in Richmond. They were twenty minutes late for the service because they'd overslept; the power had gone off in his flat, a freak summer wind storm.

Honestly, Ianto wasn't sure that the suit flattered him at all anymore. He'd lost weight, and the fabric hung on him a little too freely now. Inside his left breast pocket, the announcement was still folded up where he'd left it that afternoon, months before. _Colin and Angela - joined forever in love_.

Ianto crumpled it in at the edges and tossed it in the gutter by the edge of the road, feeling rebellious as the rain soaked through it, blurring the ink. In an hour, it would be a pulpy mess, unrecognizable.

He'd tried this same plan last night, but it had rained then too, and in an hour, he'd been soaked through to his undershirt. He'd felt pathetic, standing there on the side of the road, shivering from the biting rain that clung to his shoulders, weighing him down.

Tonight, he'd brought an umbrella. His suit was freshly dry cleaned - the same-day service shop off Princes Street. He'd try again.

He'd discard his umbrella just as the SUV rounded the corner, and then he'd step out into the street, blinking the mist from his eyes. He'd shrug off this man's anger, his frustration, his outright denial, and would appeal to some other (darker, more dangerous) side of him, maybe.

It should have been a mistake. But the rain had cleared up a little after a while, and Ianto's mood had lifted with it. He'd become even more bold, and as he stood there in front of the idling SUV, he'd drawn up his shoulders and looked this man straight in the eye. In his chest, something stirred, some tiny sliver of warmth opened up in his heart. He'd started to really want this job. Not just because he had to want it, not just because it was the only way, not just for Lisa. For himself.

Because he hadn't felt this alive since Canary Wharf.

He'd done all of this - rescuing Lisa, implementing this plan - partly because for the first time in his life, he'd been sure that he'd found something that only _he_ could do. It was terrifying to realize that he felt this exact same way now, lying flat on his back on the freezing cold floor of an abandoned warehouse, looking into the eyes of a stranger - a man who would surely kill him in an instant if he knew the truth.

It should have been a mistake, and maybe it was.

The rain had turned into a downpour again as the warehouse door clanged shut behind him. Ianto could hear it battering against the metal roof steadily, drowning out the sound of the wind and the pounding of his heart in his chest. His eyes were opened wide to everything the skies had to offer, adrenaline still flooding through his veins.

He walked all the way back to the road, back to where the SUV had first stopped. He could still make out a letter or two of the discarded announcement, just barely. He nudged it further into the roadside puddle with his toe, until the last of the ink slid into darkness. (_Litterbug_, his father's voice said, deep and cold, unforgiving. It echoed somewhere in the darkness, and Ianto shivered.)

The wetness was creeping down into his collar, soaking into his skin. He'd have to wear this suit to work tomorrow, he reminded himself; there wouldn't be time to dry clean it before the morning.

It should have been a mistake, but instead, Ianto forced his feet forward, one after the other. They crunched in the wet gravel, as he made his way back towards where he'd parked his car, and out of the rain.

**end**


End file.
